About Me

I think I've been "in the education field" since I was six months old. My Mother was a teacher in a one room school when I was born. It was World War II and Daddy was in Germany. My mother took me to school with her from the time I was six months old.
I graduated from college with a music education degree and began teaching in 1965. I quickly realized that I preferred teaching one elementary class rather than music where I barely learned the children's names. Thus over the next three years, I earned my accreditation in elementary education and began my 31 year stint as a fourth grade teacher.

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Sunday, January 4, 2009

M'balax music

M'balax ( balax, Mballax, Mbalakh, Ndaga, Ndagga) music began in the 1970's in The Gambia and Senegal as a fusion of popular Western music and dance such as jazz, soul, Latin (especially Cuban) and rock blended with sabar, the traditional polyrhythmic drumming and dance music of the area. Dancers used moves associated with the sabar rhythms. Some of the first to popularize this music were Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal Thione Seck and Omar Pene.In this video you can see the sabar drums (hit with one hand and one stick) join today's instruments.